Binwei Lu received a judges commendation for her doctoral thesis “The Effectiveness and Equity of Grammar Schools in England“

The abstract is below:
In England, secondary education is mainly comprehensive in nature. However, a small group of grammar schools retain ability-based selection at the age of 11. Students in these 163 schools obtain high grades at Key Stage 4 (KS4), aged 16. Some commentators and policy-makers believe that these high grades are an indication that grammar schools are therefore good schools, and suggest increasing the number of grammar school places. They also claim that grammar schools provide opportunities for economically poorer but able students. At the same time, other commentators believe that grammar schools are elitist and socially divisive, actually providing further opportunities mostly for the already privileged. They urge successive governments to abolish the remaining grammar schools. The issue has become a particular ‘hot topic’ in the last two elections in England.

This study looks at the impact of the presence of grammar schools in some local authorities (LAs), and considers whether the expansion or removal of grammar schools would lead to a more effective and equitable education system. This new study uses the National Pupil Database (NPD), the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data on university attendance, and a local dataset providing the results of the grammar schools’ selection test in one LA for one year. The study looks at access to grammar schools, and its relationship with pupil’s prior attainment, geographical location, and family background. It considers whether the opportunity to attend grammar schools, and outcomes of attending grammar schools, are distributed equally among different social groups. The effectiveness of grammar schools is evaluated based on pupil’s KS4 attainment and their Higher Education (HE) participation patterns.